For more than two years, Vancouver planners have tried to work out road maps for how four of the city’s neighbourhoods facing intense growth pressure should be developed.

But now, on the cusp of two of these plans being viewed as ready for public hearings, city council faces a growing revolt — from all four neighbourhoods. Whether it is Grandview-Woodland and the Downtown Eastside on the city’s near-east flank, or the West End, or the Marpole area of south Vancouver, residents in all of the these areas feel uneasy about the city’s plans.

In every case, the complaints are similar: Neighbourhoods either feel they have not been adequately consulted, or that in spite of the consultations they believe the city is planning unwelcome changes.

In Grandview-Woodland, Marpole and the West End, significant densification is the issue. In the Downtown Eastside, where Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Vision Vancouver council has focused efforts on reducing homelessness, there are worries it won’t stay responsive to the needs of those on or below the poverty line.

Residents from all four communities say they will rally outside City Hall on Tuesday night to protest the planning process and argue for a delay.

The city’s planning department itself recognizes there are problems. In a report going to a city finances and services meeting on Wednesday, planning general manager Brian Jackson has recommended delaying the Grandview-Woodland plan by a year and setting up a special “citizens assembly” to address concerns. Jackson suggests delaying the Marpole plan by a few months and separating out one sub-neighbourhood for further study. But both the West End and Downtown Eastside plans, he said, should be sent to public hearing early next year.

At least one councillor believes the city is on the right track.

“I support the process. I do think Downtown Eastside and West End are pretty well done. But I think we need to do a bit more work on Grandview-Woodland and Marpole,” said Coun. Kerry Jang.

Nowhere is the opposition greater than in Grandview-Woodland. The community, bounded between East Hastings, Broadway, Clark and Nanaimo, was the very heart of Robertson’s deep electoral support in the 2011 civic election. In each of the eight polling districts, more than 60 per cent voted for Robertson. But that support may be giving way to a backlash.

“There is a very strong and growing view here that this is the wrong community plan for us. A lot of the support they got in the last election has changed. I heard it all this summer at block parties and public events,” said Jak King, the president of the Grandview-Woodland Area Council. “There is a suspicion that this is why they want to put off this plan until after the next election by extending the deadline.”

This is not what the Vancouver Vision-majority council envisioned in 2011 when it gave staff the go-ahead to begin the last four of new community plans for the city’s 23 neighbourhoods. In the past, the city’s planning department did at most one or two area plans simultaneously. Jackson’s predecessor, Brent Toderian, at one point told council it should prioritize because of limited staff.

That concern was echoed Monday by members of the Riley Park/South Cambie Community Visions committee, which in 2005 endured a similar planning process.

“We are very concerned about the erosion of planning processes and consequential loss of public trust and support for planning initiatives since key safeguards ... have been abandoned,” Allan Buium, the chairman of the committee wrote in an open letter to council. “The four current processes are inadequate and dysfunctional ...”

Buium said Monday that Riley Park/South Cambie watched similar problems unfold during Mount Pleasant’s community planning process, and feels the city needs to slow down.

Jackson emphatically insists Robertson’s Vision council has not put any political pressure on him.

“I have had absolutely no political direction with respect to the recommendations I have made in my report. None,” he said in a recent interview.

Jackson said Grandview-Woodland residents grew concerned about the proposal for higher towers along the Broadway/Commercial corridor, townhouses on Nanaimo, highrises at Venables and Clark, and major densification along East Hastings. All that signalled that the planning department should take more time with its plan, he said.

Marpole’s problems are more limited, he suggested. “With Marpole, the issues that were the subject to concern and (that generated) the initial petitions were all related to one specific area west of Cambie. It had to do with the transition of single-family zones to perhaps townhouses and even duplexes, and the issue of thin streets.”

Jean Swanson, a former mayoral candidate and member of the Carnegie Community Action Committee, said the community generally supports some of the elements of the proposed community plan, but lacks details.

“We don’t really know what the city is going to put forward,” said Swanson, who is an alternate member on the planning committee. “I can’t speak on behalf of the (Downtown Eastside planning council). But I’m personally concerned that it is not taking the housing crisis seriously,” she said. “I am also concerned (the city) is plowing ahead with gentrification.”

Jang, who met with opponents of the Marpole plan on Friday, said residents should not fear the process.

“As I told the Marpole folks, this is the first pass, and if there are things people don’t like, we will go back and do some more work on it,” he said.

That is not any consolation to Mike Burdick, a spokesman for the Marpole Residents Coalition, which was formed after homeowners realized the city was proposing to upzone vast areas of single-family homes to allow for townhouses, duplexes and other higher-density housing.

“We feel like we got dropped on our heads,” he said. “We’ve already got nine to 12 residential towers on the books for our area, and people are feeling like they’re under siege.”

The opposition there has become so strident that more than 1,500 lawn signs have popped up, insisting council back off, especially in light of the fact the area is poorly served by an aging community centre, parks and schools.

Council also faces sustained opposition in the West End from a neighbourhood group that long opposed the city’s targeted densification through programs like the Short Term Incentives for Rental program. The West End Neighbours says most residents aren’t aware of the wider issue of land use planning in the largely rental neighbourhoods.

“We have actually written and requested an extension from city council and haven’t heard a word back on that. We very much feel that the communications have not been good with the neighbourhood,” said Virginia Richards, a member of WEN.

“We have a lot of questions around density, where they are putting it, and how much they want.”

Randy Helten, one of WEN’s founders, said the community has waged battles with city council for so long over spot rezonings and the (short-term incentives for rental) program that they are now wary about anything coming out of City Hall. “We saw in the (recent) Mount Pleasant community plan the vagueness of the planning document, and we’re worried the same will happen to us,” he said.

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Relations with Vancouver City Hall sour in four communities angered by planning process

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